If You Don't Differentiate, You're Dead!

Finding Your Unique Selling Position (USP) May be The Most Critical Activity for Your Success. Your advertising lives in a world of complexity and confusion. Consumers have so many choices in almost every product classification. When you're shopping for a service or product it's common to have even thousands of choices..

Think I'm crazy? Just search the Internet for everyday products and look at the number of search results. It's possible to have alternatives in the millions.

That's a good thing right? Sure . . . if you're the consumer. What about all of us marketing professionals who come to work everyday and try to find better ways of selling? How do we survive in such a world?

Your Advertising Must Set You Apart from Your Competitors. Your advertising must tell your prospect that you're different from the competition. In a meeting with a client the other day, we turned to the yellow pages for their product category and there was a vivid example of how NOT to do advertising.

There were pages upon pages of ads with one thing in common. They were all alike. You could have substituted one company name for another without changing the ad in the slightest and it still would have made sense to the customer.

My client was depressed over this, but I was energized! Why? This was a great opportunity for her to differentiate her business. Whoever differentiates wins the battle for business!

Without Clear Differences--Price is the Deciding Factor. What do you think happens when consumers are barraged with choices and do not perceive any difference between one supplier and another? They evaluate and make their purchase decision based on the one thing they can measure--price! When there is no other point of differentiation, price becomes the deciding factor. That's not good for you and it's not even the best for your customer--especially if you're in a business where your value is best realized when you have an on-going relationship with your customer. Customers who come to you for the best price will leave you just as quickly as they find a better price. It's like being the fastest gun in the West. No matter how fast you are, there's always someone faster. Don't play that game. It's better to differentiate.

If you can differentiate yourself, you can charge higher prices. Companies who can communicate their important differences to their customers can justify charging higher prices. The cheapest product or service does not always win the business. Consider this. No one will buy the cheapest product or service every time. Even if you're a world class tightwad, you can differentiate between bruised and fresh produce. You'll pay a higher price for the non-bruised produce. Certainly!

Are your customers any different? No. Certainly, you must have a reasonable price, but if you have highlighted an important difference in your product or service, customers will pay extra to have that benefit.

One of the most important paths to increased sales, more satisfied customers and better profits is to find the important point which makes your business different from your competitors. Then be sure to make that obvious in your advertising.

Article Source: Main Articles

The author, Craig Mecham, is the founder of of The Mecham Company The Mecham Company, a marketing consulting firm. With 25 years experience in Business to Business Marketing and promotions, Mr. Mecham counsels with national and international business.
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